China to boost investment in Brazil, president says

China to boost investment in Brazil, president says

on Dec 31, 1969 @ 7:33 PM

Rio de Janeiro, Jul 17 (EFE).- Chinese President Xi Jinping said Thursday in Brazil's capital that his government will promote increased investment by Chinese companies in strategic sectors of Brazil's economy.

China intends to "keep promoting investment in the oil, electricity and iron and steel industries," Xi said in a brief statement after a nearly three-hour meeting in Brasilia with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

He said the Asian giant also plans to "continue the construction of railways and other infrastructure" in Brazil, the No. 1 destination for Chinese investment in Latin America.

During Xi's first state visit to Latin America's largest country, Brazil and China signed 54 agreements covering new Chinese investments in railways, telecommunications, cloud computing, hydroelectric power stations, transmission towers, and automobile and construction machinery plants.

Rousseff and Xi also witnessed the signing of contracts between Brazilian aircraft maker Embraer and two Chinese entities.

The world's third-largest plane maker agreed to sell 20 E190 jets and an equal number of E190-E2 planes, the second generation of that passenger aircraft, to Tianjin Airlines.

Embraer also signed an agreement to sell 20 100-seat E190 planes to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's financial leasing arm.

Although the plane maker did not indicate how much the contracts were worth, analysts estimate their value at $2.86 billion based on the planes' catalog price.

Xi described his meeting with Rousseff as "fruitful" and congratulated her on the successful organization of the recently concluded FIFA World Cup and the 6th summit of the leaders of the BRICS, the group of large developing countries that also includes Russia, India and South Africa.